In brief

Job fair at Tuxedo Ridge Ski Center to fill 100-plus seasonal jobs Tuxedo - Tuxedo Ridge Ski Center will host a two-day job fair Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 22 and 23, from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. in the center’s main lodge. The ski center must fill more than 100 part- and full-time seasonal positions ranging from ski instructors to kitchen workers to cashiering. Job-seekers will be given immediate one-on-one interviews. There will also be live entertainment, food, raffles, give-aways, vendors, crafts and more. The lodge also has a kitchen and bar. The event also includes a ski swap, at which skiers and snow boarders can sell and buy new and used gear. Season passes will also be available for purchase and at lower rate than the usual winter price. Tuxedo Ridge Ski Center, which was formerly known as Sterling Forest Ski Center, is located at 581 Route 17A, Tuxedo. Registration is required to sell equipment. For more information, call 845-351-1122 or visit www.tuxedoridge.com. Watchtower Society of NY purchases property in Tuxedo Tuxedo — The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of NY Inc. will use a former International Paper site on Long Meadow Road in Tuxedo as the construction staging area for its new world headquarters six miles away in the Town of Warwick, a spokesman for the society said this week. The property was purchased several months ago. Meanwhile, Watchtower has applied for a demolition permit from the Town of Warwick. “We’d like to start (demolition) fairly soon and clear the (Warwick) site of those abandoned and dangerous buildings and wait for future site plan approval,” Watchtower spokesperson Richard Devine in a telephone interview. Building at the site of the former International Nickel Company on Long Meadow Road in Warwick could begin as soon as spring. Watchtower has an application before the town’s planning board for a tax-exempt campus that would serve as the organization’s world headquarters and will include a tourist center, museum and visitor center complete with four-level parking garage. The application is for a campus of eight buildings on 45-acres. The site consists currently of approximately 195 acres of forest, 37 acres of wetlands and Blue Lake, and almost 14 acres of roads, buildings and landscaping. About 70,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses visit the Brooklyn headquarters from around the world annually to tour. The next steps in the process include preparing the final environmental impact statement. That is expected by the end of November. Town of Woodbury looking for a volunteer to its Board of Assessment Review Highland Mills — The Woodbury Town Board is accepting letters from any Woodbury resident interested in volunteering to serve on the Board of Assessment Review. Letters are due to Woodbury Town Clerk Desiree Potvin by 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 14. The letters can be mailed to PO Box 1004, Highland Mills, faxed to 928-7380 or e-mailed to dpotvin@woodburyny.us. For more information, contact Supervisor John Burke at 928-6829 ext. 3. West Point science building getting $105M makeover WEST POINT — The U.S. Military Academy’s nearly century-old science building is getting a more than $100 million makeover. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer announced Monday that the Army has awarded a $105 million contract to fully renovate and expand West Point’s Bartlett Hall. The multi-purpose science facility was built in 1914, the year World War I started. The project will include the creation of an expanded and modernized science center for biology, chemistry and physics programs. Construction is scheduled to be completed by September 2015. Citizen scientists find rare ladybugs on Long Island ALBANY — The rare nine-spotted ladybug, subject of a nationwide citizen science project launched after it appeared the once-ubiquitous insect had gone extinct, has been found in New York state for the first time in 29 years. Entomologist John Losey, who heads Cornell University’s Lost Ladybug Project, says a nine-spotted ladybug was found by project participants at a Long Island organic farm in July. Losey and other Cornell scientists then went to the farm and found about 20 more, which they’re now breeding in a lab for research on what caused the near-extinction of the native insect. The leading theory about the decline of native ladybugs is that they were somehow displaced by the seven-spotted ladybug, which was introduced from Europe and released as natural pest control to eat aphids on crops.